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September 24, 2008

G158: Red Sox 5, Spiders 4

The Red Sox sent 10 men to the plate in the first inning, forcing Carmona to throw 51 pitches. They scored four runs, which was nice, but they left the bases loaded.

And by the middle of the fifth, Cleveland had tied the game against Byrd (5-11-4-1-4, 89). Byrd seemed to always be pitching with men on base; he was helped out by two double plays.

With one out in the bottom of the eighth, pinch-hitter Gumball Bailey tripled high off the Wall in left-center -- he missed a home run by only a few inches. Mark Kotsay ripped Rafael Perez's next pitch down the right field line for an RBI double, and the Red Sox led 5-4.

Manny Delcarmen came in for the ninth. After Grady Sizemore walked and was bunted to second, MDC struck out both Shin-Soo Choo and Jhonny Peralta. Both called strike threes were highly questionable pitches. In fact, if those pitches had been called strikes against Boston, I'd have smoke pouring out of my ears right now.

Baltimore had a 6-0 lead over Tampa Bay after two innings, but the Rays rallied (as effing usual) and won the game 11-6, lowering their East-clinching magic number to 1.

Terry Francona said J.D. Drew "was putting on a clinic" this afternoon in batting practice and felt great. He will be in tonight's starting lineup, playing right field. Chris Carter will play left field, giving Jason Bay a day off.

Mike Lowell thinks he will be able to play a game or two this weekend and tune up for the ALDS.

OK, maybe this was discussed in a previous thread - I've been traveling and not keeping up with the game threads. Has anyone else notices that Jed never swings at the first pitch? Now there have been Sox players who always swing at pitch 1, but Jed never seems to. And they are always called strikes! Seems like every game I've watched or listened to in the last week has Lowrie down 0-1 every time he's at the plate. Am I crazy?

I believe the first part is what he did when he put the ball in play on that exact count. The second half is what he did in PAs after specific counts were reached, like after an 0-1 start to his PA, as opposed to putting an 0-1 pitch into play.

Julian Tavarez was pitching for Atlanta... Shane Victorino was on third for Philly, and straying toward home. Third base coach tells Victorino to get back to third, because there's Tavarez, running over to try and tag him out!

yes, the magic number *should* be 2. Meaning one more TB win or BOS loss would make it 1, meaning BOS can only tie. But since the tie-breaker is guaranteed to go to TB, they only need the 1 win (or 1 BOS loss). So their true magic # is 1 to win the division. There can be no tie.

But note that it's only like that because the Sox are in the playoffs anyway. If someone else had locked up the Wild Card by now, and us and TB ended up with the same record at the top of the division, there would've be a one-game playoff which would've been in Boston as we won an earlier coin toss.